I've actually been to your site before looking for ideas. I will certainly let you know how it turns out.

absolutely awesome congrats and well done !

my only question is about the rust, surely with a build like this it would be easier to send those parts away for sandblasting / proper painting or buy less rusted ones from ebay or similiar - some of the pics of the painted parts dont look so kosher to me or is it just the camera ?

Prob a combination of the 2. I pained them with a brush instead of spraying them, and the camera I have isn't the greatest. I've only done 1 coat of the black, and there are places where the brown primer is showing through. I'm going to address them all in the winter. I'm still trying like hell to get the car up and running before then...

I have the same issue with my TII diff swap my passenser side boot rubs on my coilover just barely and has rubbed a hole in my boot. However my driver side does not have this issue but is close.

My boots rubbed on my old car and setup also..

Yeah I think they all would due to the size of the boot. Maybe over the winter I'll look around and see if I can get a smaller boot if that's possible?

updates!
More progress...Took Thur and Fri off from work and worked on the car.

I notched out the section between the shock tower braces 2 1/8" in by 1 1/8" tall.

Attachment 211519
Now the wastegate fits :roll: .

closeup of the cut. There is a little bit more bracing in there, I'm going to have to brace it back up with some gussets as this is a pretty high stress area.
Attachment 211520

side view
Attachment 211521

Next, I clocked the turbo so that it was positioned correctly for the manifold. Here it is positioned with the water lines more or less where they will be run. The oil feed is just laying loose, I still need a 10x1.5mm to -4an fitting for the block.
Attachment 211522

side view
Attachment 211523

Since I had to cut the frame, I'm going to have to paint the cut section so the new bracket doesn't rust, so I decided to just go ahead and spray the whole bay, something I should have done a long time ago. What a world of a difference.

I started to remove the wiring harness and the headlight bracketry/controls.

I sanded, primed and painted everything.

Priming....
Attachment 211524

Attachment 211525

Painted
Attachment 211526

I also prepped/primed/painted the interior access panels and the entire interior. Everything is getting painted satin black.

Attachment 211527

interior shot
Attachment 211528

prepped/primed/painted the brake booster.
Attachment 211509

Took apart the starter, cleaned it up some and painted it as well.
Attachment 211510

Painted the alternator....For the starter and alternator I used the brake caliper paint again as I figured it would hold up to the heat a bit better
Attachment 211511

painted the front bumper supports
Attachment 211512

and installed the access panels back in the car because I kept tripping over them
Attachment 211513

Here's another shot of the engine bay before tear down
Attachment 211514

I removed both fenders as well. Took the intercooler and radiator back out and anything else that would interfere with the painting off the engine bay. I started with the driver's side as it's much easier.

it's filthy
Attachment 211515

during the process of painting
Attachment 211516

driver's side done
Attachment 211517

again, the engine bay is being painted in satin black

Attachment 211518

The camera makes the paint look weird for some odd reason, but it came out perfect (just an fyi).

Now the passenger side....sigh, there's significantly more junk over here
Attachment 211503

All done
Attachment 211504

close up
Attachment 211505

What a significant difference. I'm much happier with the engine bay now.

2 more of the underside

driver's side
Attachment 211506

passenger side
Attachment 211507

Now to make the bracket so I can box the frame back in. I got a piece of 1/8" C channel and cut it to fit. I also made 2 tabs, one to go between the existing supports, and one to be welded on the forward edge of the bracket. Here they are cut out and cleaned up with the grinder.

Attachment 211508

Tomorrow morning we start welding, so I'll have some more exciting updates tomorrow. I found a shop to bore out the center hole in my rotors, so I'm dropping them off Monday. It's starting to come together.

Why didn't you just buy a FM II or Begi Stage 5 kit? Why do all this work for nothing? I mean, what's the point of wasting all this effort and money?









































Just Kidding. Your build is unbelievable to me. I only dream I'll be able to do things like this one day to my car. You're doing a mighty fine job. Attention to detail makes all the difference. So any guess as to how many cans of paint have went into this build? :)

haha. I haven't been keeping track of the paint, but it has been quite a bit.

Lookin sick, keep it goin!

sweet build. lots of effort+time+money= a badass ride. this one appeals to me even more since its focused more on engine/turbo which is a plus in my book:)

keep up the great work and frequent updates: this is worth reading

Wondered what the frame rail looked like in there. I tried removing those bolts/studs at one point and couldn't get them to budge- not even rotate. Lookin' good.

Great thread and super build. I have been waiting to see how you clean up the lower front pulleys on the motor, or are you leaving them rusted and ugly as a rememberance?

Yes I'll be cleaning them up and painting them probably next weekend.

On to the updates! It's welding time.

I got just about everything that needs to be welded done minus the clutch fork and exhaust, which must wait until everything is back in the car so I know how/where to route it. We started with the rear fenders. I ran a grinder over them to clean them up and clamped them together as we welded them up.

Here is a shot of both fenders all welded up before I cleaned them up a bit. I didn't go nuts smoothing the welds down as they are going to be covered anyways.

passenger rear fender
Attachment 211396

body filler burns
Attachment 211397

This time I ground about an inch back from the weld joint before we started
Attachment 211398

and with a coat of 3m undercoat
Attachment 211399

Attachment 211400

Here are some of the brackets I made for the next steps...
Attachment 211401

I ditched the original bracket idea for the frame notch as I was thinking and I don't want to have to worry about it breaking, so I cut out another piece of channel to fit in between the bolts for the k member (all the way to the right) 2 of the 3 "squares" are end plates for the big angle bracket, and one is for the rear antenna hole. Here is the antenna hole welded up
Attachment 211402

it cleaned up pretty nicely with the grinder
Attachment 211403

Since I no longer have the PPF, I needed some way to hang the wire bundle that used to mount directly to the PPF. I cut out 4 pieces of square tubing and welded them to the upper inside of the transmission tunnel, like so:
Attachment 211404

I'll either use a hose clamp or a zip tie to keep the wire tucked up nice and high and out of harm's way.

Now on to the main event. Here is what I am working with. I cut out this section so that I wouldn't have to modify the manifold.
Attachment 211405

Next I got out the dremel tool and cleaned up all the weld surfaces so there would be a good surface to weld on.

Here is a shot of the support gusset. It is welded on 3 sides. The welder tip was too large to get to the side facing the motor, but it should be plenty strong.
Attachment 211393

Here are 2 end plates burned in and the big angle bracket tacked in place
Attachment 211394

and all burned in...
Attachment 211395

Well a little time with the flap disc on the grinder to smooth the welds out and some paint and I am good to go! I'm planning another big weekend for the car this weekend so I'll have more updates to follow. I'm on the downward slope now!

Could you tell if those subframe studs run through tubes or are they just through the holes in the rail (as in the photo shows the studs not tubes). Just trying to get some insight on modifying/removing them.

Geez o' freaking pete... that's one heck of a labor intensive build, gotta respect that.

I'm considering doing the same, but if I'm going to do this much work, it's going to be with my kids when they're older, and it'll be a GT40 replica kit.

If I had to guess I would say that there are studs that run through them, almost as if those braces are sleeves, and the studs have "hats" that are welded to the top (the part that you see)....but I'm not really sure. It kind of looks like the sleeve is the only thing there as it has the large "washer", but I don't think that would be strong enough by itself which was where my guess comes into play.

swung by the car tonight and picked up the camera. Here are a couple of the pics I took this past weekend.

Took the cover off, and started installing components. First up was the manifold, wastegate, and turbo to see if all my hard work actually paid off.
Attachment 211253

Oh and it sure did! :D
Attachment 211254

The wastegate will sit about 1" further back as the engine right now is leaning forward a bit. I'm pleased with how it came out though. Here's a shot from up front.
Attachment 211255

Next up I decided what the hell, I'm going to hide some of these wires and remove the ones I don't need. I'm doing everything else, why stop here?
I started with the passenger side as there is more junk over here. I moved the transistor and the capacitor to outside in the upper fender, drilled new holes for them and extended the wiring harnesses for them. I might go back and change this around some, and incorporate the stock bracket, but I have to think it over some more.
Attachment 211256

Yes, I cut off the butt connectors and soldered everything in nice and clean. I don't want to have to guess about faulty wiring splices so I figured do it right the first time. Here's a shot of them all buttoned up
Attachment 211257

Here's the wiring after I took off the factory tape and plastic covering
Attachment 211258

Attachment 211259
I'm keeping the towel down so I don't scratch the paint while I'm moving things around.

Got a little bored with this and decided to get back to fab work and finally finished the last big hurtle- the clutch fork. Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures during the process- just kind of got in the zone and saw the finish line up ahead. What I did was cut it just below the "line" below where the pivot ball sits, and spaced it out 1/2". I then cut out a piece of 1/8" stock in the shape of a parallelogram and welded it up at an angle, resting it on the pivot ball indent. I then cut out some side plates out of 1/8" stock and welded them to the each side. Here are some pics while I was cleaning up the welds with the grinder a bit.
Attachment 211260

Attachment 211261

Attachment 211262